Habit 1: Be Proactive

Sorry guys, I was away in Bali for a few days last week hence all my posts had been slowed down a little. Despite me being away from my computer, I did prepared my entry though. I could have posted but internet means over at Bali kinda sucked. LOL a Dial up.... It's like this ancient tachnology came to life :p

So before further delays, I present to you, HABIT 1

HABIT 1: BE PROACTIVE

Principles, Paradigms and Processes

An Underlying Principle:

Individuals are responsible for their own choices and have the freedom to choose.

Key Paradigm:

"I am responsible for my behavior and the choices I make in life."
"I can expand my personal freedom and influence through being proactive."

Key Processes:

Recognize reactive tendencies and develop proactive responses.
Increase your Circle of Influence.
Become a transition figure to benefit yourself and others.
Exercise the human endowments through conscious choice in decision making.


The Habit of Personal Vision

Be Proactive means that as humans beings we are responsible for our own lives. Our basic is to act and be acted upon. It's instructive to break the word responsibility into 2 parts - Response-ability, the ability to choose your response.



Highly proactive people recognize that responsibility. They do not blame circumstances, conditions or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their conscious choices, based on values, rather than a product of their conditions, based on feelings.

The opposite of proactive is reactive. The spirit of reactive people is the transfer of responsibility. Their language absolves their own responsibility.



"That's me. That's just the way I am." I am determined. There's nothing I can do about it.

"He makes me mad!" I'm not responsible. My emotional life is governed by something outside of my control.

Many behavioral scientists have built reactive, deterministic, stimulus-response model of human behavior. The basic idea is that we are conditioned to respond in a particular way to a particular stimulus. In contrast, the proactive model states that between stimulus and response lies our freedom to choose our response.

As human beings, we have 4 unique human endowments that distinguish us from the animal world. These endowments resides in that space between stimulus and response.
Self awareness is our capacity to take a look at ourselves and examine our own thinking, our motives, our habits and our paradigms.
Conscience serves as our internal guidance system, which allows us to sense when we act or even contemplate acting in a way that's contrary to principle.
Creative Imagination is our ability to create in our minds beyond our present reality.
Independent Will is our capability to act, free from all other influences.

Circle of Influence and Circle of Concern.

Application

This technique is good for separating out lower from higher priorities, and gaining ownership for action.

A Circle of Concern encompasses the wide range of concerns we have, such as our health, our children, problems at work, the amount of government borrowing, or the threat of war.



A Circle of Influence encompasses whose concerns that we can do something about. They are concerns that we have some control over.



Can these circles be changed? YES is the answer. We as human beings has the ability to enlarge our circle of influence. There are many things that you could do to be more influencial towards the people around you.

Stephen Covey defines proactive as “being responsible for our own lives…..our behaviour is a function of our decisions, not our conditions
Proactive people focus on issues within their circle of influence. They work on things they can do something about. The nature of their energy in doing this is positive, enlarging and magnifying. They increase their Circle of Influence



That's it for now for the first habit. Do drop me any comments on questions that you may not understand though. I would definitely get back to you by clearing your questions.

One more thing though, As most of you know that I just came back from Bali, Would you want me to finish on the 7 habits first or interrupt the habits and go to some huicy hot pictures of Bali? wahahahaha. Let me know on that too k? Cheers